Dr. Bob's Mouthly Report

NPR (5/15, Chatterjee) reports scientists are concerned that the expansion of legislation allowing people across the US to buy and consume marijuana is exposing consumers to cannabis that is extremely potent. As a result, researchers “who study marijuana and its effects on the body” and emergency room physicians “say they’re starting to see more patients who come into the ER with weed-associated issues.” According to one study of marijuana seized by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, “the potency increased from about 4% THC in 1995 to about 12% in 2014,” while another study showed that by 2017, “the potency of illicit drug samples had gone up to 17.1% THC.” 

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Newsweek (5/15, Freedman) reports that the World Health Organization estimates the “worldwide death rates from drug-resistant microbes will climb from the current 700,000 per year to 10 million by 2050,” surpassing “cancer, heart disease and diabetes to become the main cause of death” for humans. Health care providers are “scrambling to tighten up on the use of antibiotics in an effort to slow the development of resistant strains,” but the strategy “will only buy us some time,” the article says. A major problem is that there is “little in the pharmaceutical pipeline to replace” current antibiotics, because drug companies are not keen to spend about $2 billion over 10 years “with little hope of ending up with the sort of blockbuster drug that justifies such an investment,” according to Newsweek. 

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MarketWatch (5/14) states the global dental consumables market is expected to experience growth due in part to an aging population, according to a new market report that used a forecast period through 2024. 

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Bloomberg (5/9) says that “the volume of opioids prescribed in the U.S. fell 17% last year, the most in more than a quarter-century, as doctors have become increasingly cautious about giving out large amounts of the drugs amid an epidemic of abuse.” Prescriptions of opioids “are down 43% overall since their 2011 peak, according to a broad report published Thursday by IQVIA Holdings Inc.” The number “of opioid pills being dispensed is still huge. On average, there were enough opioid pills prescribed last year to give every adult in the U.S. the equivalent of 34 pills,” which is “down from the equivalent of 72 pills per adult in 2011.” 

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